Many organizations are moving toward cloud-based services and infrastructure to provide on-demand services. Many enterprises now use cloud-based computing platforms that allow services and data to be accessed over the Internet (or via other networks). Infrastructure providers of these cloud-based computing platforms offer network-based processing systems that often support multiple enterprises (or tenants) using common computer hardware and data storage. This “cloud” computing model allows applications to be provided over the network “as a service” supplied by the infrastructure provider.
Multi-tenant cloud-based architectures have been developed to improve collaboration, integration, and community-based cooperation between customer tenants without sacrificing data security. Generally speaking, multi-tenancy refers to a system where a single hardware and software platform simultaneously supports multiple user groups (also referred to as “organizations” or “tenants”) from a common data storage element (also referred to as a “multi-tenant database”).
A multi-tenant system stores data as objects. Tenants may be allowed to create and store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standard objects, for example, by creating custom fields for standard objects.